He was a wonderful, sweet, sexy fool, and she loved him.
A mournful groan escaped from her lungs before she could hold it in. She clapped a hand over her mouth to silence the protest of her soul, squeezing her eyes shut for a few seconds in a vain attempt to block what her heart was screaming at her. The best thing that had ever happened to her had just thrown himself at her feet in an act of incredible romance, and she had run from him.
But she had to. He had to see that this would never work. The waves rushed in over her feet, the sand beneath her shifting and pulling as she walked, just like the certainties of her life supported her one second, then gave way the next.
No, she had to be true to herself. Wasn’t that what everyone always told her? Wasn’t that was Jenny and half of the rest of the world had told her when Brad left? Be true to yourself, Be true to who you are. Find strength in what makes you unique. Do all that and the right man would come along and love you for it.
What if Spence was the right man? What if all this time she’d found what she had always wanted, and now she was denying it?
By the time she made it to the stairs leading up to Sand Dollar Point, the rain was coming down in light sheets. It flattened her hair to her head and soaked through the shoulders of her t-shirt. It was a gloomy, chilly rain, one that would seep straight into her soul if she wasn’t careful. She reached the lawn at the top of the stairs and twisted to glance out over the beach, out to the pier at the other end. A little light still shone, but most of the strands of lights had been put out. They’d probably taken it all down, wrapped it up, and packed it away like a set, along with all the other props and extras.
She sighed and lowered her head as she plodded the rest of the way up the porch steps and under the shelter of the roof. The rain drummed lightly on the overhang, but even under shelter, Tasha still didn’t feel warm or safe.
“It didn’t go well, then?”
Tasha started as Yvonne spoke up from her seat on the wicker sofa.
“Sorry.” Yvonne held up a hand in apology. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You didn’t scare me,” Tasha insisted.
She headed for the screen door, but stopped, hesitated, then spun to face Yvonne.
“Did you know he was going to propose?” she demanded, stepping closer to the sofa.
Yvonne narrowed her eyes, studying Tasha. “Yes. I did.”
Tasha shook her head. She wanted to blame the woman sitting in front of her for all of this. She wanted to blame her for setting her up, and she wanted to blame her for manipulating Spence’s life. It was people like her that were the reason celebrities were treated the way they were.
Except that Tasha had been the one to turn Spence down. She had been the one to treat him like he was putting on a show.
She pushed the thought away and crossed her arms.
“Well, I hope you’re happy now. It’s all over. You can take him back to L.A. or New York or wherever you want to take him to film that little TV show of yours.”
“It’s not my show, honey,” Yvonne replied, her voice kind enough to stab Tasha with guilt.
She didn’t want the woman’s pity. She didn’t want to succumb to that mothering tone of voice.
“Spence got down on one knee,” she blasted at Yvonne instead, pacing beside the sofa. “He hired musicians. He had people put up lights and set up flower.”
“I know,” Yvonne said.
“He told me that he loved me and that he would stand up for me and protect me, no matter what people thought of me or what they tried to say.”
Yvonne nodded. “That sounds just like Spence.”
“But how can he do all that when you’ve already got the deck stacked against me?” Something raw and tender broke loose in Tasha’s chest. She stopped pacing. Another wave of tears threatened at the back of her eyes. “How can he possibly love me and want me in his life when everyone around him is going to criticize him for scraping the bottom of the barrel?”
“Is that what you think people will say?” Yvonne turned in her seat to face Tasha more fully.
“Isn’t it, though? Isn’t that what your world is all about? Judging people and finding them ugly or fat or boring?”
“Part of it.” At least the woman wasn’t lying to her.
“So why on earth would a man as noble and kind as Spence want to chain himself to someone who will be a constant source of negative comments? How do you think it will look?” The arguments flew through her head so fast and so strong that she felt them all spinning out of control and unraveling. “How can my life fit with his? If he’s off filming and I’m teaching, how will we ever be together?”
“It might be hard,” Yvonne conceded.
“I love teaching. I love children. I don’t want to give that up for any man.”
“No one’s asking you to, honey.”
“But they will. When they see that I don’t want to live the wild life or go out to after parties or have sex in department store changing rooms, they’ll just dump me for some red-headed floozy and—”
She stopped cold. There it was. The truth buried in all the fear. And it was exactly what Spence had told her it was. Brad. That other woman. Her crushed dreams and shattered hopes. All because she didn’t fit with the life that Brad wanted to have.
Yvonne cleared her throat, scooting to the end of the sofa. “Sit down, sweetie.”
Too stunned to tackle the wild jumble of her thoughts and emotions, Tasha couldn’t do anything but sit. She perched on the very end of the sofa, afraid to move lest she burst into pieces.
“Tasha, I’ve spent my whole life managing people,” Yvonne began. “Bless his heart, my daddy was an alcoholic and my mom was a basket case. I was the oldest, so I was the one who shouldered it all. And it sucked. But who cares. I learned more from the suffering I went through when I was young about human nature—about how to herd people away from the things that are bad for them and toward the things that they need—before I was eighteen than I did in all my years of law school or any of the psychology classes I’ve taken. I charge ten times your yearly salary per client. And they pay it. With a smile on their faces. And do you know why?”
Tasha swallowed and shook her head, too shredded to speak.
“I’ll tell you why. Because I never let the bad things that happened to me hold me back from helping someone else when they needed help.”
Warmth squeezed at Tasha’s chest.
A moment later it snapped.
“How can you say that?” she asked. “How can you pretend to be all noble when you’re whole focus is to push Spence into jobs and to spit-shine his image?”
“What makes you think that’s not helping him?” Yvonne asked right back.
“Because he needed to come out here in the first place.” Tasha scrambled to fit the pieces of what she knew of Spence together. “He was burnt out on Hollywood and all glitz and image. He wanted to get away from people like you.”
“Did he?” One of Yvonne’s thin, penciled brows shot up. “Remember who moved heaven and earth to get this house for him, honey. Who picked over mountains of scripts and offers to find Second Chances for him. And before you snap to judge me, you might want to stop and consider who just convinced the producers of Second Chances to film in Maine.”
Another wave of cold shock washed over Tasha. So many things had flipped in the course of a single evening that she was numb.
“Maine?”
“Yes. At least the location shoots. But half the time, it’s more convenient to find studio space near the locations. Maybe in Portland or Boston? So think about that before you accuse me of trying to take Spence away or thrust him into something he doesn’t want just for the sake of his image. You’re what he wants.”
Tasha crumpled, more and more energy leaving her. “He’s going to be shooting that show nearby?” He had mentioned something before, but it hadn’t hit home until now.
“Yes.”
That was all Yvonne
said. Tasha sat there and let it sink in. She closed out her eyes to block everything but the faint, pulsing beat of her heart. Spence wasn’t about to run off and leave her, he had worked to arrange things to be near her. Worked hard.
“Why didn’t he explain what this means?” she whispered, then opened her eyes.
“Because nothing was written in stone until today,” Yvonne answered with a shrug. “I just got off the phone with the producers about half an hour ago, while you kids were up at the pier, proposing and being proposed to.”
The knot in Tasha’s gut squeezed tighter as the rain grew in intensity. She wanted to grab hold of the arms of the sofa to keep the world from tilting too fast. The beautiful, horrible thought struck her that Spence had meant every word he said to her as he proposed. He really would take care of her and stop people from gossiping about her, as much as he could, at least. He would defend her instead of leaving her, because he thought she was a good person, worth defending, worth being with.
“So does the truth help or hurt?” Yvonne intruded in her thoughts.
Tasha clenched her jaw, then let it go and turned to her. “Why are you suddenly so interested in whether I love Spence and say yes to his proposal or not? I thought I was bad for his image, that you didn’t like me and wanted to get rid of me.”
A wry smile spread across Yvonne’s lips. “Honey, when did I ever say that I didn’t like you?”
“You….” Tasha couldn’t remember the words ever being spoken.
“All right.” Yvonne held up her hands. “I’ll admit, I think there are more marketable women out there who Spence could date that would earn him far more media attention. And I can’t say I’m crazy about the idea of trying to sell a celebrity of his status with a nobo— with a non-celebrity relationship,” she corrected herself. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t like you.”
Tasha forced her back straight. “So you do like me?” she asked, highly doubtful.
“Of course, I like you.” Yvonne smiled. “Well, I could like you. I’ve seen how much spunk you have. I’ve seen your energy and your determination. That’s why I don’t understand a thing that you’re doing right now.”
Tasha shook her head, twisting to face her. “What do you mean?”
Yvonne let out a laugh. “Honey, you fought for twenty years to get this place. You scrimped and saved and worked for twenty years—in the middle of launching a career, while dating a dud of a man, while making legions of children and parents fall in love with you, I’m sure. You fought to have this place for the summer, fought for your dreams. Even when life kicked you in the teeth.”
“So?” Tasha asked, back itching, unsure whether to take it as a compliment or to wait for the inevitable insult.
“So, you’re a fighter,” Yvonne explained. “I love a good fighter. Only, sweetheart, you’re not fighting now, and I don’t know why. You’re not fighting for a man who loves you so much that he talks back to me about you. You’re not busting those odds and flying in the face of convention to save a relationship that could turn out to be the best thing that could ever happen to either of you. Yes, yes, I’ll admit it.” She gestured in defeat. “The two of you were made for each other. So why aren’t you fighting?”
Tasha blinked and stared at her hands in her lap. Why wasn’t she fighting? Why was she letting whatever voice had taken over her head tell her it wouldn’t work? People had told her that she would never spend the summer at Sand Dollar Point, and yet there she was, sitting on a porch learning life lessons from a big-shot Hollywood agent, after having just turned down a proposal of marriage from one of the—no, the most generous, kind-hearted man she had ever met.
But what if you fail? that voice whispered above all of her positive thoughts.
But what if you don’t? she answered herself.
The slam of a car door around the corner sent a spike of fearful expectation down Tasha’s spine. That had to be Spence coming home. It had to be. The rain beat down in steady sheets now. Across the beach, the lights had all gone off on the pier. The landscape was dark, uncertain. But she knew what was there. She could hear the steadiness of the waves—waves that would always be there on a beach that had weathered countless storms.
Could she really do this?
She glanced to Yvonne. The older woman watched her with curious, narrowed eyes. She smiled when Tasha turned to her, but kept silent. Together, they listened as the front door opened and closed at the other side of the house, as footsteps sounded in the hall through the screen door.
Tasha held her breath. What would she say? What would she do when he came out to the porch to find her? Could she really fight for this? Fight for the love that was billowing like the ocean in her heart? Fear and questions piled on her, and she turned to the screen door, eyes wide.
The footsteps in the hall changed to footsteps on the stairs. They plodded slowly, ringing hollow on the boards. He wasn’t coming out to the porch.
Tasha let out a breath, but the fear that had seized her turned to something far, far worse. What if that was it? What if she had just ruined the best thing that had ever happened to her?
“What do you think?” Yvonne asked.
Tasha turned stiffly to face her, heart thumping against her ribs, stomach sinking as if she’d been caught doing something wrong. “Huh?”
Yvonne stretched her arm along the back of the sofa, close enough to pat Tasha’s shoulder if she wanted to, if Tasha would let her in.
“Do you think he’s worth fighting for?”
Yes. Her frightened, thundering heart answered yes.
Her feet didn’t move.
“I don’t know,” she mumbled, looking down at her hands in her lap.
“Sure you do, honey,” Yvonne said. “Sure you do.”
Yvonne shifted and stood. Tasha stood with her, as if she wouldn’t have had the power to stand on her own if Yvonne left.
“It’s been a long day,” Yvonne said. “I’m beat. Why don’t you go up and sleep on it? The house isn’t going anywhere in the night. Neither is Spence.”
Old fear squeezed at her. “Are you sure?”
“He’s not that type,” Yvonne answered. “Trust me on this. Actually, never mind. Don’t trust me. You already know that he’s not that type. You know it. Trust him.”
“I…” Tasha started, but gave up. There was no point to anything more she could say.
Instead, she nodded, and turned to head into the house and up the stairs. Her feet itched with the need to move on, to do something to fix the turmoil bubbling in her. She stopped at the top of the stairs and stared at the door to Spence’s room. A line of light shone at the bottom. She glanced across the hall to the room she had picked out for herself that first day—that first day when she had been convinced Spence was an entitled jerk out to ruin her life.
Well, here she was, nearly seven weeks later, and her life wasn’t ruined. It had been beautiful and fun and sexy in some way for every one of the seven weeks that she had been at Sand Dollar Point. It had been the dream vacation she’d always wanted. Spence hadn’t ruined it, only she had that power. Her whole life could turn out the way her summer had.
She swayed toward Spence’s door, but checked herself. There was no sense in rushing a confrontation. Yvonne was right. Spence would be there tomorrow. He wasn’t the kind to kiss and run and leave a girl in the lurch. She switched direction and tip-toed on to her own room, slipping through the door and closing it as silently as possible.
There it was again, the decision before her. Who did she want to be? She could live a quiet life as Miss Pike—a life she was good at, comfortable with, a life that suited her—or she could take a chance on love, the purest love she’d ever been given. It might end in tears, it might not. Life didn’t come with a guarantee. But if it worked?
She let out a breath and stretched to lie atop her bed, closing her eyes. Which dream did she want to live? How did she want the story of what she did with her summer to end?
Cha
pter Twenty
Spence didn’t think he could possibly sleep after the bone-deep pain of Tasha’s rejection. His chest ached with the knowledge that he’d tried with everything he had, and she had still said no. It didn’t make any sense. She loved him. She’d said as much. He loved her. In the world he came from, love was almost always guaranteed a happy ending, with music swelling and beautiful lighting. This didn’t make sense.
Maybe the real world, the world Tasha kept saying she belonged to, didn’t make sense. He wasn’t sure he cared much for a world where love was thwarted and where the ghosts of ex-boyfriends and shattered self-esteem kept people apart.
He turned the frustrating thought over and over in his mind, grinding it down to dust, until he was so exhausted that sleep tackled him, whether he wanted it to or not. He awoke the next morning to a pounding headache, muscles sore from clenching them all night, and the same problem, right where it was, unsolved. Even a shower and a shave didn’t help him to feel better. The only thing that was going to set this whole thing right was talking to Tasha, begging her for an explanation, something he could wrap his head around, something he could work with.
Raking his fingers through his damp hair, he headed downstairs for the confrontation he knew had to happen. The house was quiet, though the front and back doors and several windows had been opened to let in the sound of the waves caressing the beach below and the squawk of sea birds. They were sounds he had come to love, but they did nothing to soothe him today.
The scent of fresh coffee called to him from the kitchen. Spence took a deep breath and stepped around the corner from the hall, expecting Tasha to be there pouring a cup. She wasn’t there. The kitchen was empty, but for the trash can that had been pulled a few feet toward the center of the room. Spence rubbed the odd feeling that one object out of place gave him. Was that supposed to be a sign? That their relationship wasn’t worth saving? That Tasha had decided to toss him out?
He brushed the maudlin thought aside and crossed through the kitchen and the dining room to the screen door leading out onto the porch. Tasha had probably taken her coffee out there to contemplate the beach, and maybe, if he was lucky, their future. The storm of the night before had pushed through, leaving the sky a bright, cobalt blue and the waves choppier than usual. A few people jogged along the sand, but one glance told Spence none of them was Tasha.
Summer with a Star (Second Chances Book 1) Page 25